History

From 5^th to 11^th Sep­tem­ber 1980.
The actor Dan­ny Kaye opened the Fes­ti­val offi­cial­ly, arriv­ing on the Casi­no cinema’s stage on all fours, with­out a word said but with a loud blast on a whis­tle! Elia Kazan, to whom the Fes­ti­val was pay­ing trib­ute, can­celled his atten­dance fol­low­ing the death of his wife, the direc­tor Bar­bara Loden, whose film Wan­da was screened at the Fes­ti­val on the very day she died. The oth­ers receiv­ing trib­utes that year were Dan­ny Kaye, Glenn Ford, Yul Bryn­ner and, for his first trib­ute, Clint East­wood. The heads of 35 major Hol­ly­wood stu­dios held their gov­ern­ing board meet­ings in Deauville, dur­ing the Festival.